04-13-2008, 01:21 PM
"'WE'RE IN THE GREATEST CRISIS IN MODERN HISTORY"
http://larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2008/lar_p...omats.html
As most of you know aspects, at least, of the problem the world faces today, we're presently in the greatest crisis in modern history, globally. Some governments, of course, are more aware of aspects of this crisis than others, because they're involved in the wrong end of the stick, in some of these problems.
But there are two general characteristics of the situation. First of all, the entire world financial monetary system is in a hyperinflationary crisis, on a global scale, which is comparable in its dynamics, to what happened to Weimar Germany in 1923. There is no minor financial crisis in the United States. What there is, is a global crisis.
Now, to understand this more adequately, I'll make a few remarks which are longer than usual, but they're necessary in order to put this in focus, because this is an unusual situation. I think there is no comparison with what I've said before, with what I see here in the world today.
What you're dealing with generally, is a crisis which started, essentially, in 1890, when Kaiser Wilhelm II fired Bismarck. Now the significance of that was twofold. First of all, the victory of the United States over the British in the U.S. Civil War, had produced in Europe a recognition of the significance of the United States for the world system. The most significant thing which frightened the British, which threatened them the most, was the development of a continental railway system inside the United States, which was considered a geopolitical threat by the British Empire. Because, up until that time, in modern history and ancient history, the great power had lain not so much in land power, but in maritime power. And the British Empire, which was actually started as an empire, as a private company in 1763—February, with the Peace of Paris—was dominating the world through a financial empire, with military features added. It's essentially a diplomatic empire.
So, when the United States developed a continental unity around a victory over the British in the U.S. Civil War, and on the unity of the United States through the development of a trans-national railway system, which integrated the territory of the United States, this evoked —especially after 1876—invitations and imitations of the same type in Europe.
For example, in Russia, the famous development of the trans-Siberian railroad, and the whole development of Russia under the great leaders of that time was a reflection of that. The development of railways, the reforms of the German system under Bismarck in 1877 to 1880—these were all reflections of the impact of the success of the United States in defeating the British, in the British orchestration of the Civil War in the United States.
So, what prevented the war from starting earlier, was Bismarck. Bismarck, as the leader of Germany, had frustrated the British, who had control over much of the German government, by negotiating simultaneously with Nicolas II of Russia, and with his own government, to prevent Russia and Germany from coming to loggerheads because of the Balkan crisis. So that the moment that Bismarck was ousted, by the orders of Crown Prince of Britain, Prince of Wales, then the lid was off, and you had a whole series of events, including the assassination of the President of France, the Dreyfus case, the opening of the first British war against China, which was launched through Japan as an ally of Britain in 1895, and so forth. So, the entire period, from 1890 through 1945, was essentially a period of strategic conflict over so-called geopolitical issues.
Today, we have a similar kind of situation, which can be understood only by looking back to that period, because what we're seeing, as we saw with the Cold War, so-called, was a continuation of this process of geopolitical conflict, being managed by the British, and as the influence of Franklin Roosevelt declined in the United States under Truman and later on, especially after the assassination of Kennedy, then the whole world was going again, toward a new crisis. Now, since the crash of the U.S. dollar, but especially since the events of the so-called oil price crisis of the 1970s, at that point, first of all, in 1971, the U.S. dollar system was destroyed, destroyed under Nixon, by shutting down the Bretton Woods system. And that destroyed the U.S. dollar.
In the same period, the British organized the famous oil hoax, of the early 1970s, and out of this, the Amsterdam, the Anglo-Dutch liberal banking institutions, set up what was called the petrodollar, and the U.S. dollar was no longer the stable currency of the world, but rather since the oil price crisis, rather the control of the price of oil, and the control of the value of the U.S. dollar, lay in the hands of those who control the Amsterdam market.
So, since that time, the United States has been systematically destroyed, self-destroyed, destroyed by the policies of the Nixon administration, in terms of foreign policy and economy, and destroyed internally, physically, under the Carter Administration, by the Trilateral Commission crowd. And we're been going down all the way through.
Then you had a period, beginning 1989, with the breakdown of the Polish crisis, and then the later breakup of the Soviet Union, which led into another period of great looting, and shift in character of politics worldwide. We've now come to the point where the great inflationary process, which is a hyperinflationary process, is blowing out. Nothing will save the present world financial monetary system. Nothing can save it. It's doomed — it's gone. Only the creation of a new system represents a remedy.
Also, we've had a new development, which is called the Lisbon Treaty organization, and the Lisbon Treaty organization now threatens the greatest threat of warfare since, probably greater than that of the 1930s, but the greatest certainly since the last century. In which, a breakdown of the world monetary and financial system, and the creation around the Lisbon Treaty organization of Europe up to the borders of Belarus and Russia, being under the control of a new dictatorship, if it goes through, called the Lisbon Treaty organization, under which no government of Europe, from the Atlantic to the borders of Belarus and Russia, will actually be a government. They will all be puppets of the British Empire, under this new arrangement, the new European treaty organization. If this is not stopped.
As a result of the formation of this development, combined with the beginning of the hyperinflationary blowout, which started at the end of July of this past year, we're now in a situation, the greatest threat of wars and similar crises globally in modern history. Certainly in all of modern history. We have a state of virtual warfare being organized by the British government against China. We have an instability in Pakistan, which is being advantaged. We have the tendency of China, India, and Russia, and other countries, to join together to find some form of resistance, cooperation and resistance, against the British effort.
You have an American presidency which is a puppet... The U.S. Congress is useless at this point, especially since the last election, Congressional election. A fascist group like Felix Rohatyn, George Soros, control the Democratic Party, financially. Control the Speaker of the House. The U.S. Congress is impotent, both the Senate and the House of Representatiave. Things happen which you would think would be impossible, up to two years ago.
We're now in a point of conflict, typified by what the British did, using their own Nazi asset, the Dalai Lama, who used to be an asset of the Nazi party, this Dalai Lama, and who remained a part of the Nazi organization even past that time. And what the British had created, with the development of the British Empire, in creating an area of conflict and management between India and China, through the Tibetan operation and the Uighur operation, is now fully on.
What is happening in Africa, where genocide —the attack on Zimbabwe is simply a part of a process of genocide, which is aimed also at South Africa, as well as other parts of the world.
We're in the worst crisis of humanity, in all modern history, now. And it's a crisis which is going toward the edge of war. And because of the conditions of warfare in modern terms today, you're talking about doomsday warfare, not orderly warfare. What we have going on in Southwest Asia, is simply typical of the whole process. The cockpit of war, organized by the Tony Blair government in Iraq, is now being used as a cockpit of war for the whole region.
So, we're in the worst crisis in history.
In my view, there are remedies. There are solutions. But you won't find much of anything presently in the U.S. government, to deal with this.
The U.S. election campaign is a crucial part of this. Probably the two focal points of the whole process are the U.S. presidential election campaign, this year, and what is happening in terms of the Lisbon Treaty organization process. If the Lisbon Treaty organization is adopted, Europe, from the Atlantic to the borders of Belarus, will no longer be civilized. It will be simply a fascist regime, resembling in its organization, very much the Mussolini organization in Italy. That's the status and what we have.
There are forces in Europe which are resisting this. There are popular forces who are resisting it; they are significant. So far, they have not been successful. But if this treaty organization is adopted, there will not be a sovereign government between the Atlantic and Belarus, in all of Europe. None. Because there will be no parliament that has any power, no president that has any power. NATO will be integrated with this organization, and it will be a war organization, prepared to go to full-scale war, by bluff and by the kind of bluff that leads to war.
So we face today, the greatest crisis in all history of what's called modern civilization. A crisis which is comparable, in terms of its economic effects, to what happened to Europe in the middle of the Fourteenth Century, the so-called New Dark Age. And only by alertness, and by not being fooled into looking at particular issues, as if these were the problems, but seeing the issue as a whole, the global issue, only from that standpoint, can you formulate policies, and can nations group together, around policies of common interest to resist the great threat which is coming out of London, and out of those interests today.
BRITISH DESTABILIZE AFRICA: FOOD RIOTS SPREAD AS HUNGER DEEPENS
The energetic British attempts to create chaos and famine in Kenya and Zimbabwe in Africa, take place against a background of worldwide hyperinflationary food price increases and sudden food shortages, which are threatening both to kill large numbers of people, and to bring down governments in the Third World. The developing potential food crisis and famine arise from decades of British and Brussels attacks on national food self-sufficiency, and outright food scarcity policies masked as "agricultural free trade."
Josette Sheeran, director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned that "a perfect storm" is threatening millions as food prices soar and as the need for aid grows rapidly, during a visit to East Africa, reported The East African. "We are seeing a new face of hunger," she declared at a UN conference in Ethiopia on April 1. "We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. Often, we are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."
Worsening economic pressures related to the cost of food have resulted in civil disturbances in five African countries in just the past three months — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. In Kenya, the "political" violence has led to increased hunger among the displaced, and in Tanzania, 38% of children under the age of five are stunted in height due to chronic malnourishment.
Another UN official warned in Dubai that rising food prices will set off worldwide unrest and threaten political stability. Sir John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development (DIHAD) Conference that "The security implications should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe. Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."
Holmes estimated that food prices had shot up 40% (!) on average worldwide since the summer of 2007. Soaring fuel prices will also contribute to the unrest, he said, including the direct contributions to food price hikes made by increases in diesel prices, fossil fuel-based fertilizer prices, etc.
The London Guardian newspaper listed the worst food unrest, most recently, as threatening the stability of Egypt, Haiti, and Ivory Coast, but also the riots in Cameroon in February; in Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal; and protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia, and Indonesia. UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay raise in the face of a 50% hike in food prices.
BREAD RIOT DEATHS IN EGYPT AND YEMEN
As the financial madness continues and the hyperinflationary policy of the FED and the ECB keep pouring gasoline on the fire, and the Congress keeps blocking LaRouche's HBPA, people in many parts of the world are dropping dead as a result. In Egypt and Yemen, as was the case in Jordan two weeks ago, people, pressed by the internationally rising basic foodstuff prices, are going to the streets by the tens of thousands. In the textile industry city Al-Mahalla in Egypt, police shot two demonstrators, and wounded dozens. Protesting workers were demanding higher wages, since their current wages are not matching the prices of mere bread and butter. The textile industry in Egypt has been ruined since the government started a massive privatization process in the 1990s going along with the "globalization" process. Speculators like George Soros became owners of these once thriving state-owned industries, pushing down wages to lower and lower levels to match cheap-labor wages in Asia.
The ever-present British element made things worse in Egypt, as the Muslim Brotherhood started riding on the demonstrators' backs for political gain. The Muslim Brotherhood, who are in the middle of an election contest with the government, are intending to destabilize the government of Hosni Mubarak, which itself is in a "succession process," as young Jamal Mubarak is being prepared to succeed his father as the leader of the ruling party and the nation. Mubarak is being pressed between the Scylla of the British Muslim Brotherhood destabilization, and the Charybdis of Cheney's demands made on Egypt to join the operation to split southwest Asia into Sunni and Shi'a fighting states, in preparation for a war against Iran.
Egypt has been a hostage to its food supply, coming mainly from the U.S. Under Kissinger's NSSM 200 policies Egypt was targetted and its policies for food self-sufficiency were stopped. Instead, Egypt was offered food aid by the U.S., turning it into a hostage. Effort and direct discussions by Lyndon LaRouche with Egyptian officials in the early 1980s for massive nuclear power and water/agriculture projects for Egypt were sabotaged by British agents in the United States.
In Yemen there are demonstrations in all of the southern cities of the country which were under a separate communist government until the reunification of south and north Yemen in 1989. The demonstrators demand to split the country again as "solution" for the problems the population is facing now, leading to confrontations between the police the demonstrators. Although there are no exact numbers of the casualties available, the scarce information coming out of the country indicates that the number of killed is between 50 and 70 so far. The government has deployed tanks around some cities there and the situation could be exploded any moment.
Governments in Southwest Asia are helpless since they have no short-term plans or means for dealing with the situation which is part of a larger global crisis.
WORLD GRAIN MARKETS ARE NOW NON-FUNCTIONING ; GRAIN FOR TRADE IS DISAPPEARING
Despite the fact that you may still hear daily hyper-prices quoted for agro-futures on the commodity exchanges, the reality is that the world grain markets are dysfunctional. Prices have "gone vertical"; and you may not obtain product at any price. With absolute tonnages of rice and wheat so scarce, "normally" exporting nations have put a hold on allowing food to leave their countries, in order to protect domestic consumption. No international mobilization yet exists for emergency increases in production, and making best use of the existing scarce supplies. Though speculators are still swarming on the Chicago Board of Trade and other exchanges, users of the actual hard commodity—nations, farmers, bakers and others—are madly scrambling to line up private pledges for grain. The following figures give a snapshot view for rice and wheat, as of the March issue of the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates by the USDA.
Rice The tonnage of rice available for importing this year is falling drastically. The USDA estimated in March that rice for export was trending downward from the level of 30.85 mmt traded in 2006/7, down to perhaps 29.39 mmt to be traded this year. But this fantasy does not reflect the recent announcements by major rice exporting countries that are now limiting or banning exports. Of the 29 million metric tons of rice for trade or aid, only seven nations account for 27 mmt, and four of them have restricted exports, possibly adding up to a "loss to the markets" of 11.2 mmt. They are (their "normal" annual export tonnage is noted): Vietnam (5 mmt); India (3.5 mmt); China (1.3 mmt); Egypt (1.3 mmt). Additionally, Pakistan, which exported some 3 mmt in recent years, has none for export, and is beset by grain going to Afghanistan. Thailand, the world's leading grain exporter, is also restricting exports. Thus, 24.2 mmt, or over three-quarters of all the rice traded on the world markets, may not be there in coming months. (mgm)
Wheat The tonnage of wheat traded each year is likewise falling. In 2005/2006, it was at the level of 116 million metric tons; then down to 111 mmt last year. This year, the USDA puts it at 105 mmt, but that is not accounting for the withholding that may occur. The top 8 wheat exporting nations would account for 96 mmt of wheat traded this year, but so far 21 mmt of that amount, from Russia and Kazakhstan, may not all go on the market at all.
http://larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2008/lar_p...omats.html
As most of you know aspects, at least, of the problem the world faces today, we're presently in the greatest crisis in modern history, globally. Some governments, of course, are more aware of aspects of this crisis than others, because they're involved in the wrong end of the stick, in some of these problems.
But there are two general characteristics of the situation. First of all, the entire world financial monetary system is in a hyperinflationary crisis, on a global scale, which is comparable in its dynamics, to what happened to Weimar Germany in 1923. There is no minor financial crisis in the United States. What there is, is a global crisis.
Now, to understand this more adequately, I'll make a few remarks which are longer than usual, but they're necessary in order to put this in focus, because this is an unusual situation. I think there is no comparison with what I've said before, with what I see here in the world today.
What you're dealing with generally, is a crisis which started, essentially, in 1890, when Kaiser Wilhelm II fired Bismarck. Now the significance of that was twofold. First of all, the victory of the United States over the British in the U.S. Civil War, had produced in Europe a recognition of the significance of the United States for the world system. The most significant thing which frightened the British, which threatened them the most, was the development of a continental railway system inside the United States, which was considered a geopolitical threat by the British Empire. Because, up until that time, in modern history and ancient history, the great power had lain not so much in land power, but in maritime power. And the British Empire, which was actually started as an empire, as a private company in 1763—February, with the Peace of Paris—was dominating the world through a financial empire, with military features added. It's essentially a diplomatic empire.
So, when the United States developed a continental unity around a victory over the British in the U.S. Civil War, and on the unity of the United States through the development of a trans-national railway system, which integrated the territory of the United States, this evoked —especially after 1876—invitations and imitations of the same type in Europe.
For example, in Russia, the famous development of the trans-Siberian railroad, and the whole development of Russia under the great leaders of that time was a reflection of that. The development of railways, the reforms of the German system under Bismarck in 1877 to 1880—these were all reflections of the impact of the success of the United States in defeating the British, in the British orchestration of the Civil War in the United States.
So, what prevented the war from starting earlier, was Bismarck. Bismarck, as the leader of Germany, had frustrated the British, who had control over much of the German government, by negotiating simultaneously with Nicolas II of Russia, and with his own government, to prevent Russia and Germany from coming to loggerheads because of the Balkan crisis. So that the moment that Bismarck was ousted, by the orders of Crown Prince of Britain, Prince of Wales, then the lid was off, and you had a whole series of events, including the assassination of the President of France, the Dreyfus case, the opening of the first British war against China, which was launched through Japan as an ally of Britain in 1895, and so forth. So, the entire period, from 1890 through 1945, was essentially a period of strategic conflict over so-called geopolitical issues.
Today, we have a similar kind of situation, which can be understood only by looking back to that period, because what we're seeing, as we saw with the Cold War, so-called, was a continuation of this process of geopolitical conflict, being managed by the British, and as the influence of Franklin Roosevelt declined in the United States under Truman and later on, especially after the assassination of Kennedy, then the whole world was going again, toward a new crisis. Now, since the crash of the U.S. dollar, but especially since the events of the so-called oil price crisis of the 1970s, at that point, first of all, in 1971, the U.S. dollar system was destroyed, destroyed under Nixon, by shutting down the Bretton Woods system. And that destroyed the U.S. dollar.
In the same period, the British organized the famous oil hoax, of the early 1970s, and out of this, the Amsterdam, the Anglo-Dutch liberal banking institutions, set up what was called the petrodollar, and the U.S. dollar was no longer the stable currency of the world, but rather since the oil price crisis, rather the control of the price of oil, and the control of the value of the U.S. dollar, lay in the hands of those who control the Amsterdam market.
So, since that time, the United States has been systematically destroyed, self-destroyed, destroyed by the policies of the Nixon administration, in terms of foreign policy and economy, and destroyed internally, physically, under the Carter Administration, by the Trilateral Commission crowd. And we're been going down all the way through.
Then you had a period, beginning 1989, with the breakdown of the Polish crisis, and then the later breakup of the Soviet Union, which led into another period of great looting, and shift in character of politics worldwide. We've now come to the point where the great inflationary process, which is a hyperinflationary process, is blowing out. Nothing will save the present world financial monetary system. Nothing can save it. It's doomed — it's gone. Only the creation of a new system represents a remedy.
Also, we've had a new development, which is called the Lisbon Treaty organization, and the Lisbon Treaty organization now threatens the greatest threat of warfare since, probably greater than that of the 1930s, but the greatest certainly since the last century. In which, a breakdown of the world monetary and financial system, and the creation around the Lisbon Treaty organization of Europe up to the borders of Belarus and Russia, being under the control of a new dictatorship, if it goes through, called the Lisbon Treaty organization, under which no government of Europe, from the Atlantic to the borders of Belarus and Russia, will actually be a government. They will all be puppets of the British Empire, under this new arrangement, the new European treaty organization. If this is not stopped.
As a result of the formation of this development, combined with the beginning of the hyperinflationary blowout, which started at the end of July of this past year, we're now in a situation, the greatest threat of wars and similar crises globally in modern history. Certainly in all of modern history. We have a state of virtual warfare being organized by the British government against China. We have an instability in Pakistan, which is being advantaged. We have the tendency of China, India, and Russia, and other countries, to join together to find some form of resistance, cooperation and resistance, against the British effort.
You have an American presidency which is a puppet... The U.S. Congress is useless at this point, especially since the last election, Congressional election. A fascist group like Felix Rohatyn, George Soros, control the Democratic Party, financially. Control the Speaker of the House. The U.S. Congress is impotent, both the Senate and the House of Representatiave. Things happen which you would think would be impossible, up to two years ago.
We're now in a point of conflict, typified by what the British did, using their own Nazi asset, the Dalai Lama, who used to be an asset of the Nazi party, this Dalai Lama, and who remained a part of the Nazi organization even past that time. And what the British had created, with the development of the British Empire, in creating an area of conflict and management between India and China, through the Tibetan operation and the Uighur operation, is now fully on.
What is happening in Africa, where genocide —the attack on Zimbabwe is simply a part of a process of genocide, which is aimed also at South Africa, as well as other parts of the world.
We're in the worst crisis of humanity, in all modern history, now. And it's a crisis which is going toward the edge of war. And because of the conditions of warfare in modern terms today, you're talking about doomsday warfare, not orderly warfare. What we have going on in Southwest Asia, is simply typical of the whole process. The cockpit of war, organized by the Tony Blair government in Iraq, is now being used as a cockpit of war for the whole region.
So, we're in the worst crisis in history.
In my view, there are remedies. There are solutions. But you won't find much of anything presently in the U.S. government, to deal with this.
The U.S. election campaign is a crucial part of this. Probably the two focal points of the whole process are the U.S. presidential election campaign, this year, and what is happening in terms of the Lisbon Treaty organization process. If the Lisbon Treaty organization is adopted, Europe, from the Atlantic to the borders of Belarus, will no longer be civilized. It will be simply a fascist regime, resembling in its organization, very much the Mussolini organization in Italy. That's the status and what we have.
There are forces in Europe which are resisting this. There are popular forces who are resisting it; they are significant. So far, they have not been successful. But if this treaty organization is adopted, there will not be a sovereign government between the Atlantic and Belarus, in all of Europe. None. Because there will be no parliament that has any power, no president that has any power. NATO will be integrated with this organization, and it will be a war organization, prepared to go to full-scale war, by bluff and by the kind of bluff that leads to war.
So we face today, the greatest crisis in all history of what's called modern civilization. A crisis which is comparable, in terms of its economic effects, to what happened to Europe in the middle of the Fourteenth Century, the so-called New Dark Age. And only by alertness, and by not being fooled into looking at particular issues, as if these were the problems, but seeing the issue as a whole, the global issue, only from that standpoint, can you formulate policies, and can nations group together, around policies of common interest to resist the great threat which is coming out of London, and out of those interests today.
BRITISH DESTABILIZE AFRICA: FOOD RIOTS SPREAD AS HUNGER DEEPENS
The energetic British attempts to create chaos and famine in Kenya and Zimbabwe in Africa, take place against a background of worldwide hyperinflationary food price increases and sudden food shortages, which are threatening both to kill large numbers of people, and to bring down governments in the Third World. The developing potential food crisis and famine arise from decades of British and Brussels attacks on national food self-sufficiency, and outright food scarcity policies masked as "agricultural free trade."
Josette Sheeran, director of the United Nations World Food Program, warned that "a perfect storm" is threatening millions as food prices soar and as the need for aid grows rapidly, during a visit to East Africa, reported The East African. "We are seeing a new face of hunger," she declared at a UN conference in Ethiopia on April 1. "We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. Often, we are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it."
Worsening economic pressures related to the cost of food have resulted in civil disturbances in five African countries in just the past three months — Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal. In Kenya, the "political" violence has led to increased hunger among the displaced, and in Tanzania, 38% of children under the age of five are stunted in height due to chronic malnourishment.
Another UN official warned in Dubai that rising food prices will set off worldwide unrest and threaten political stability. Sir John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development (DIHAD) Conference that "The security implications should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe. Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."
Holmes estimated that food prices had shot up 40% (!) on average worldwide since the summer of 2007. Soaring fuel prices will also contribute to the unrest, he said, including the direct contributions to food price hikes made by increases in diesel prices, fossil fuel-based fertilizer prices, etc.
The London Guardian newspaper listed the worst food unrest, most recently, as threatening the stability of Egypt, Haiti, and Ivory Coast, but also the riots in Cameroon in February; in Mauritania, Mozambique, and Senegal; and protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia, and Indonesia. UN staff in Jordan also went on strike for a day this week to demand a pay raise in the face of a 50% hike in food prices.
BREAD RIOT DEATHS IN EGYPT AND YEMEN
As the financial madness continues and the hyperinflationary policy of the FED and the ECB keep pouring gasoline on the fire, and the Congress keeps blocking LaRouche's HBPA, people in many parts of the world are dropping dead as a result. In Egypt and Yemen, as was the case in Jordan two weeks ago, people, pressed by the internationally rising basic foodstuff prices, are going to the streets by the tens of thousands. In the textile industry city Al-Mahalla in Egypt, police shot two demonstrators, and wounded dozens. Protesting workers were demanding higher wages, since their current wages are not matching the prices of mere bread and butter. The textile industry in Egypt has been ruined since the government started a massive privatization process in the 1990s going along with the "globalization" process. Speculators like George Soros became owners of these once thriving state-owned industries, pushing down wages to lower and lower levels to match cheap-labor wages in Asia.
The ever-present British element made things worse in Egypt, as the Muslim Brotherhood started riding on the demonstrators' backs for political gain. The Muslim Brotherhood, who are in the middle of an election contest with the government, are intending to destabilize the government of Hosni Mubarak, which itself is in a "succession process," as young Jamal Mubarak is being prepared to succeed his father as the leader of the ruling party and the nation. Mubarak is being pressed between the Scylla of the British Muslim Brotherhood destabilization, and the Charybdis of Cheney's demands made on Egypt to join the operation to split southwest Asia into Sunni and Shi'a fighting states, in preparation for a war against Iran.
Egypt has been a hostage to its food supply, coming mainly from the U.S. Under Kissinger's NSSM 200 policies Egypt was targetted and its policies for food self-sufficiency were stopped. Instead, Egypt was offered food aid by the U.S., turning it into a hostage. Effort and direct discussions by Lyndon LaRouche with Egyptian officials in the early 1980s for massive nuclear power and water/agriculture projects for Egypt were sabotaged by British agents in the United States.
In Yemen there are demonstrations in all of the southern cities of the country which were under a separate communist government until the reunification of south and north Yemen in 1989. The demonstrators demand to split the country again as "solution" for the problems the population is facing now, leading to confrontations between the police the demonstrators. Although there are no exact numbers of the casualties available, the scarce information coming out of the country indicates that the number of killed is between 50 and 70 so far. The government has deployed tanks around some cities there and the situation could be exploded any moment.
Governments in Southwest Asia are helpless since they have no short-term plans or means for dealing with the situation which is part of a larger global crisis.
WORLD GRAIN MARKETS ARE NOW NON-FUNCTIONING ; GRAIN FOR TRADE IS DISAPPEARING
Despite the fact that you may still hear daily hyper-prices quoted for agro-futures on the commodity exchanges, the reality is that the world grain markets are dysfunctional. Prices have "gone vertical"; and you may not obtain product at any price. With absolute tonnages of rice and wheat so scarce, "normally" exporting nations have put a hold on allowing food to leave their countries, in order to protect domestic consumption. No international mobilization yet exists for emergency increases in production, and making best use of the existing scarce supplies. Though speculators are still swarming on the Chicago Board of Trade and other exchanges, users of the actual hard commodity—nations, farmers, bakers and others—are madly scrambling to line up private pledges for grain. The following figures give a snapshot view for rice and wheat, as of the March issue of the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates by the USDA.
Rice The tonnage of rice available for importing this year is falling drastically. The USDA estimated in March that rice for export was trending downward from the level of 30.85 mmt traded in 2006/7, down to perhaps 29.39 mmt to be traded this year. But this fantasy does not reflect the recent announcements by major rice exporting countries that are now limiting or banning exports. Of the 29 million metric tons of rice for trade or aid, only seven nations account for 27 mmt, and four of them have restricted exports, possibly adding up to a "loss to the markets" of 11.2 mmt. They are (their "normal" annual export tonnage is noted): Vietnam (5 mmt); India (3.5 mmt); China (1.3 mmt); Egypt (1.3 mmt). Additionally, Pakistan, which exported some 3 mmt in recent years, has none for export, and is beset by grain going to Afghanistan. Thailand, the world's leading grain exporter, is also restricting exports. Thus, 24.2 mmt, or over three-quarters of all the rice traded on the world markets, may not be there in coming months. (mgm)
Wheat The tonnage of wheat traded each year is likewise falling. In 2005/2006, it was at the level of 116 million metric tons; then down to 111 mmt last year. This year, the USDA puts it at 105 mmt, but that is not accounting for the withholding that may occur. The top 8 wheat exporting nations would account for 96 mmt of wheat traded this year, but so far 21 mmt of that amount, from Russia and Kazakhstan, may not all go on the market at all.